


The Chimes of Silver Lake

by Falke



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: "The history books say a sinkhole opened up on the edge of Silver Lake one day," Sharon explained. "Decades ago, back before the town or the farms, when Bunnyburrow was just a train stop on the map.""Bunnyburrow town hall is built from limestone that got quarried out of there," Judy said. "Some other buildings, too. But they dug up so much of it that the ground nearby got soft.""What's left of the village there is halfway underwater. It happened so fast that they used the clock tower to ring for help, since there was no 911 back then.""So it's haunted?" Grant asked. "This isn't how you get Watchers, is it?""As far as we know, this one actually is just a ghost story," Violet told him."Not that anyone here really knows," Judy added. "Until now, no one's gotten close enough to see." She leaned forward to cut off Violet's scoffing. "But the stories go that if you get close enough, you can hear the ringing."
Relationships: Judy Hopps & Nick Wilde, Judy Hopps/Nick Wilde
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

In all his years of living in the city proper, Nick had never found anything that could quite replicate the atmosphere of a working farm in full swing for Harvest.

It was something about the light, he decided. The sun got low and its light grew thin as afternoons waned under the wide open skies. The golden hour became golden hours, full of rich russets and yellows and fading greens, and the faint haze of dust and wood smoke winding down on the wind from the distant fields and even more distant forests.

And that was just what he could see from here through the kitchen window, just one postcard view of that repeated again and again out there. The Hopps farm covered hundreds of acres to explore, sprawling in every direction from the main house and barns over those golden hills.

And exploring it sounded perfect.

"I'm in," he said.

"Good." Judy nodded, as if there had ever been any risk of him disagreeing. "That's two."

"Hey, don't start counting votes early." Judy's sister Sharon still had her paws dusted with flour. "We have to wait until everyone gets back."

Nick turned back to the bustling kitchen. This was postcard idyll, too, in the carefully controlled explosion sort of way. Close to a hundred mammals were packed into the vaulted space: Hopps rabbits, nearly again as many of their closest neighbor clan the Westons; shrews, a bobcat, badgers, beavers and deer all visiting from town. Nick had grown up in Zootopia's melting pot and this was still an experience for him.

For now he was the only fox, perched at this table by the long windows on a borrowed barrel chair, with Judy and one of her closest sisters Sharon. Bonnie had charged them with making dozens of apple crumble pastries. The others had gone to get more ingredients, so Judy was getting a head start on her plans for the rest of their visit.

"I already know you're going to say yes, too," Judy teased her sister.

"Only if you promise not to charge off exploring on your own like you did on the field trips," Sharon said. "Violet's going to remember that."

"I'm not eight years old anymore," Judy grumbled. She eyed Nick's smile. "It's like they think I'm still a reckless little kit."

Nick winked at Sharon. "Can't imagine where they get that idea," he said.

Two rabbits broke out of the sea of mammals in the kitchen and came up to join them. Violet was in the lead, with Sharon's boyfriend Grant right behind, carrying a burlap bag in his paws.

"Didn't get lost, did you?" Sharon asked.

"Sorry it took us so long," Violet said. "You know how those deliveries are, when everyone needs something off the truck."

"What did you find?"

Grant tugged the drawstring open and scooped out a pawful of crushed walnuts. "Think these'll work? We could candy them, too."

"That's perfect," Sharon said. "Thanks, sweetheart."

Grant's ears were shorter, and a little rounder than those of Hopps rabbits. He waved them modestly. "As long as they work. I've never put a whole pie in a little tin."

Nick knew better than anyone - any mammal who dated a Hopps rabbit was the subject of much discussion, speculation and dissection. Grant was a radiologist, a medical professional who garnered instant acceptance from the many nurses and doctors in the family. His prowess in the kitchen was just bonus points.

"They're a big hit with the kits," Nick said. he remembered the year before. "Easier to stuff in a pocket."

Grant chuckled, when Sharon nodded along. "Oh, no."

Judy worked with Violet to roll the nuts through the bowl of brown sugar, and pitched the others on her plan for the evening.

"When we're done with our baking, I thought we could go for a hike out to Silver Lake."

Grant looked to Sharon. "Sounds like fun."

"Especially since it's Harvest," Judy said.

"It does," Violet said. "Will Mister Craggen still let the family through his land?"

Judy and Sharon looked at each other.

"So much for that being a hard sell," Sharon muttered. She helped Nick scoop more apple slices into the waiting crusts in their trays. "Even Vi wants to rough it? What happened to _'I'll get burrs in my tail?'_ "

"Excuse you." Her glasses flashed and she put down her little sugar spoon. "I happen to think unplugging for a day or two during the craziest time of year sounds lovely. We could all use the peace and quiet."

Nick knew where she was coming from. Harvest and all the holidays were stressful, and he reckoned that out of all of them at the table here, Violet got the worst of it. He and Judy might deal with angry drunks and petty thieves and all the rest, but at least they got to lock them up out of sight and out of mind each night. Violet made her living helping mammals work through all their stresses. Some of those had to rub off.

She had a grateful smile for him just now, though, and that lifted his spirits.

Sharon looked thoughtful. "I hadn't considered that."

"On one condition," Violet amended. "No running-"

"-off where I could drown, I know." Judy rolled her eyes. "Relax. Sharon already read me the riot act."

"Don't blame your older sisters for being the careful ones," Violet said. "In terms of crazy schemes, you're worse than Winter sometimes."

Judy opened her mouth to object - and then looked to think better of it. Sharon laughed.

"The history books say a sinkhole opened up on the edge of Silver Lake one day," She explained, for Nick and Grant's benefit. "Decades ago, back before the town or the farms, when Bunnyburrow was just a train stop on the map."

"Bunnyburrow town hall is built from limestone that got quarried out by Silver Lake," Judy said. "Some other buildings, too. But they dug up so much of it that the ground nearby got soft."

"What's left of the village there is halfway underwater. It happened so fast that they used the clock tower to ring for help, since there was no 911 back then."

"So it's haunted?" Grant asked. "This isn't how you get Watchers, is it?"

"As far as we know, this one actually is just a ghost story," Violet told him.

"Not that anyone here really knows," Judy added. "Until now, no one's gotten close enough to see." She leaned forward to cut off Violet's scoffing. "But the stories go that if you get close enough, you can hear the ringing."

\---

The sun had started its slow crawl out from under the low clouds and toward the horizon, thinning out the light on the waving corn and wheat fields even more. Geese swept over the road through the fields in a ragged V, on their way to the farm's own little lake for the night, and the wind was carrying hints of a deeper cold to come that night.

"This is a first," Nick said, peering out the windshield where the hard-packed gravel of the road rolled away under the truck's wheels. Judy had taken the miles to the farm's edge and south toward the property lines at a downright sedate pace. "You're not driving it like you stole it."

"You know how old this truck is." Judy gave him a patient look, briefly, before her attention went back out to the road and the crops they were passing by. "If I go any faster we might lose something important."

The truck was packed. They had a boxy old canvas field tent, and sleeping bags and extra blankets in tight rolls. Nick and Grant had loaded a crate and cooler full of food for the night, filled a thermos with the Hopps' famous cider, and carefully wrapped some of their now piping-hot puffins in foil to keep them warm. There was even a tiny stove lashed in the corner of the truck bed, full of coals they would use to cook dinner and keep warm.

The two-mammal cab was closer to cozy than cramped, with Nick wedged in between Judy and Violet. Sharon and Grant rode on jump seats bolted in the bed, tucked behind the cab to stay out of the wind. Nick was surprised Judy let that safety risk slide, but then she was still a country rabbit at heart, just like the rest of them. Maybe that was why she was taking it slow.

"So what's the forest like?" he asked Violet. She had her nose close to the side window, watching the waving cornstalks slide past.

"I remember it being beautiful, this time of year," she said. "Our cash crops go right up to the edge of Mister Craggen's land, and it's very different, since he left his side of the fence wild. There are pine trees fifty feet high, and aspens under them with bright yellow leaves, like a painting."

" _Forest_ is a bit generous," Sharon put in, where she was leaning close to the open back window. "Most of the trees are further south, but we never went that far."

Ahead, the dirt road abruptly ended, right at the edge of the cropland. Doubletrack sketched away into a short stretch of unkept grass, and beyond that was the forest.

Sharon might have called it nothing special, but it certainly stood out from the ordered ranks of growing crops on the farm side of the fence. Gambel oak started thick right at the base of the hill, and further up there were scatterings of fir trees and the standout white of aspen trunks, shining in the narrowing sun and supporting clouds of dancing gold leaves. Overshadowing all of them were towering ponderosa pines, raking the sky with their upswept bunches of long needles.

Judy took them through a gap in the fence, past weather-beaten posts that marked the property line. Immediately the ground got rougher, and Judy's caution a little more justified.

"Oops," she said, as the untreated trail bounced them all around. Something squeaked in the bed behind them. "Sorry."

"We're okay," Sharon said. "Just don't floor it." She stuck a paw into the cab to point directions. "Go along the edge here. If I remember right, there's a nice clearing that goes a way in once we get past this hill."

Nick and Violet leaned forward to watch as the trees came up and reached over them. Even with most of the windows up, Nick felt the temperature drop a few degrees as they got into the shade. The sunlight dappled and eventually receded to the occasional flash through the branches. The breeze was up - they could hear it rushing through the countless needles and leaves even over the sound of the truck's engine.

"Here," Sharon announced.

The flat patch was as good a place as any - the stands of pine got so thick on the far side that they wouldn't have been able to take the truck deeper even if they wanted to. As it was, the dense growth blocked a lot of the wind, and long branches of the scraggly oak curved overhead to shelter the little clearing.

Judy brought the truck up alongside the aspen trunks to one side and killed the engine. They piled out into the chilly air, and Nick was immediately glad for his winter coat coming in.

Judy crunched her way through the fallen leaves, around the front bumper. "The shade is really something."

"I think you and I take our stints in Sahara for granted," Nick told her.

Her ears were chilly under his paws. She looked up at him, and gave him a patient smile at his fretting.

"I'm fine, you know."

"Sure," Nick said, and took a moment to savor telling the truth. "But this is my favorite excuse for checking. Did you pack more layers?"

"I have a coat in the truck," she said. "And we get the big sleeping bag tonight."

Violet was looking on, like she might have asked the same thing. She seemed to visibly approve of Nick's approach.

"It's so strange to not be the one doing that."

Nick felt his tail sweeping back and forth. He was glad this little group all knew the score. Especially since it was Harvest - the weather this time of year nearly demanded snuggling, and these were mammals Nick felt he could be comfortably reckless around, if the opportunity ever arose.

"Did you try hugging her like this?" he asked.

_"You two."_ Judy snorted. "I'll get it before we go anywhere."

"Better sooner than later," Sharon said. She was helping Grant lift the rolled canvas of the tent, and motioned Judy to go look for a likely spot in the shade of the pines, where it would be out of the wind. "Light's not going to last much longer this time of year."


	2. Chapter 2

There was no path through the forest, but there was a gradual draw that sloped down away from them and served as a decent guide. They followed the ridge deeper into the trees, out of sight of the campsite and in amid the trunks of the tallest pines. With the exception of the wind rushing through the needles above them, it was strangely muffled and quiet.

"Which way are we pointed right now?" Nick asked. The trees stretched in every direction, and with the twilight coming on visibility was already dropping. Only a jumble of moss-crusted boulders in the lowland stood out, and if they hadn't had the natural rise to follow, Nick suspected he would have been almost totally lost.

"West." Judy pointed to what little they could see of the sunset. "There's a road that leads south to the lake, just up here."

On the far side of the rocks, another road sliced from north to south through the forest, straight and nearly level, and wider than the one they'd driven down to get out here.

Nick peered down its length. The setting sun threw long, jagged shadows over the leaves that were starting to collect along its edges. If there was the open space of a lake on the far end, he couldn't make it out. It may as well have gone on forever, laced with its gloomy trees.

"So if it's not Watchers-" Nick took a couple longer strides to catch up to where Judy and Violet were keeping the lead through the gloom. "What are we expecting to find out here?"

"There's buildings on the lakeshore," Sharon said.

"We visited them once, back in environmental science class in school," Judy said. "It was so they could teach us firstpaw about soil dynamics and erosion. The water got into everything and ruined the foundations."

"Most of it's falling down, or waterlogged," Sharon said. "But that didn't stop Judy from wanting to explore."

"I got you to come along, too," Judy reminded her. "It was only Violet who never wanted to get her paws muddy."

"I should mention that I still don't want to, if we can help it," Violet warned. She held up an admonishing finger. "It's too cold to go swimming, and if anything's still standing out there it's probably even more rickety than the Number Four Barn at home."

"You're no fun," Sharon said.

"And was it haunted back then?" Grant asked.

"I didn't see anything out of the ordinary," Violet said.

"That's because we were there at midday in the middle of summer," Judy said. "I like our odds better this time."

It was about a quarter mile's easy hiking. Sharon had Grant's paw, so Nick took Judy's, too, and they whiled away the easy walk watching the sun set, and hunting the thickets and clearings they passed for any ghostly signs of Watchers, just in case.

Soon the trees thinned, and the road curved around a bend of aspens to run along the edge of a narrow inlet. They arrived just in time to catch a spectacular sunset.

Nick imagined this view, too, featured on at least one postcard. The Hopps farm had a lake, but this spread of open water made that look like the little rain pond it technically was.

Silver Lake sat glittering in the lowland between a ring of tall hills, each of them covered in the patchwork of a mixed forest in autumn. The water rippled in the evening breeze, reflecting the last rays of the sunset over the trees that crowded close on its western shore. There was just enough light left to see out through the gathering mist and across the bay, where geese clattered in the shade of the far shallows.

The road ran down to a group of buildings on the close shore, but even from here Nick could tell their better days were a long time past. The largest was a tall-sided building with a tattered roof, that might have been a pumphouse or some sort of crop storage. The squat wooden remains of shorter barns and farmhouses were falling in on themselves across the road.

It took Nick a moment to understand the rest of what he saw. Out in the water itself was a spindly clocktower, half again taller than any of the other buildings. Its face was a shattered mess, letting the light through where the mechanism had once been. The whole thing looked to have only weathered stilts left holding it up.

The others craned at the ruins too, as they approached down the center of the road. They were fast running out of dry land - the old path led straight down into the water, where the shore waves had scattered its limestone and stained it with tide marks.

Judy went right up to the edge, just short of the water that lapped at her toes. She leaned out over the water and peered down into it.

"Wow." She drew the word out. "It gets deep right here. The road just drops off."

Nick came up to look over her shoulder. The stone path disappeared into the murk just a few feet from the water's edge, where Nick could tell on some intuitive level that the water grew dangerously deep.

"Well then don't get so close to it," Violet said. She stayed well on the shore side. "I really don't want to have to come in after you."

"Relax, Vi." Sharon watched Judy edge around and step up onto a rickety-looking wooden dock that extended further into the water. It creaked under her weight. "She knows how to swim."

Nick kept a careful eye on Judy too, as she crouched down to look closer. "I wonder how much of the village got swallowed."

Now he could make out the dark outline, too. It curved away from their vantage toward the broader water ahead. What should have been shallow lakebed was instead unnaturally murky even in the remaining sunlight. Judging by the few remaining posts and stones in the shallows next to them, at least one of the original buildings had slipped off into the depths.

They cut the craterous shape a wide berth as they traced it along the shoreline, picking their careful way through the grasses where the ground seemed firmest. Sharon and Grant took the lead, and Violet seemed much relieved that Judy was back with her. She had grabbed her other paw, the one Nick didn't already have wrapped in his.

"So what's the big one?" Grant asked.

"Pump house," Sharon guessed. She tilted her head at it. "Yeah, see the pipes? I bet they drew water from the lake at first, instead of digging wells."

The whole near side was canted toward them, like a cliff face made of decaying wood and corrugated metal that had a dull glint in the last of the twilight sun. The ground had sloughed out from under it, continuing the outline of the wide depression.

They came up short where it blocked the path and turned to look back out over the scene. From here, with the sunset behind it, the crooked shape of the clocktower looked like the sort of thing that should have been haunted. Its shadow reached out toward them over the water, like a sundial marking time from the center of the huge depression.

And it was cold, in its shadow. Colder than it should have been, even on the edge of a lake at sundown. Nick paused, and felt his hackles stir.

Next to him, Judy stopped, too, following his gaze across the water.

"Strange."

"You feel that, too?" Nick asked.

"Feel what?" Violet turned to frown up at them both.

"It's really chilly," Judy said.

"We lost our light," Sharon pointed out. She crossed over to them, into the shadow. "You remember how that goes in the country."

Judy ran paws over her ears, like she was checking if they'd gotten wet in her explorations. "No, it feels like more than that."

"Breeze, maybe?" Grant had zipped his coat all the way up to its storm collar.

"Really, Vi?" Sharon said. "You're not cold?"

"Maybe I'm just a bad measure of these things," Violet admitted. "I've been cold since we first got to camp."

"Fair enough. If-"

Sharon stopped, and four sets of rabbit ears flicked around as something ticked and creaked from the direction of the tower on the water. Nick listened, and felt Judy grabbing his paw, with the one that Violet hadn't already monopolized.

On the far shore, the gusts of wind were thrashing the trees around. The fog on the lake billowed along, and more ripples danced underneath them. They watched it cross the water toward them, and Nick clearly felt the air stir against his exposed fur, and then rush, and then buffet as the full force of the gust arrived. The temperature dropped another degree, just like that.

And from the tower came the deep peal of metal on ringing metal.

Now all of them jumped. Judy squeezed Nick's paw tighter and Violet squeaked something he didn't quite catch over the wind.

_"Whoa,"_ Judy breathed. "Did you hear?"

Nick's nape prickled in the fading wind. He had. It was an echo, already fading in his ears as if it had come from some greater distance than the tower itself, but the sound was unmistakable.

The ringing of a stately bell.

Sharon's eyes were huge in the falling dark. She, too, had edged closer to Grant. "There's no way that clock still works," she muttered.

"It was the wind," Grant said. "Right? Even if the bell is still there-"

"But it's not!" Sharon turned against the wind. "Oh, I don't like this..."

Nick stared hard at the clocktower. It was a ruin, same as before. If its chimes were still there, they would have been able to see the, right through the naked mechanism.

But there was just... nothing.

"You're letting your imagination get away from you," Violet said. She edged further back from the shadow. "It settled in the wind, that's all. It's a wonder it hasn't fallen over yet, with gusts like that."

Nick felt Judy shaking next to him, from the cold, or from the strain of trying to see what wasn't there to be seen.

He pulled her closer into a proper hug and looked down at her alert ears, and her wide eyes in the dark.

"What do you think?" he asked.

She nestled back against his chest, and kept watching the tower. "I think the stories were right. What else could it be, Vi? There's no bell up there to ring anymore."

"Exactly," Sharon said.

"Then we must be missing something," Violet said. She was hunched against the cold now, too. "Something we can't see in the dark."

The wind pushed at them again. Water sloshed in the deepest shadows at the base of the tower, and drew more normal-sounding but no less ominous creaks and groans from the other buildings nearby. The fog was coming in off the water, eerily thick and smelling faintly of algae and must.

Sharon shivered again. "Way to make the entire lake mad, Vi."

She snorted. "Please."

It got a bit warmer, as they moved further away from the lake's edge. The wind was still chasing them, though, and Nick felt another almost pleasant tingle of unease when he looked back at the shadowy reach of the tower on the water.

"It's only going to get darker," he said. "Whatever it was, I don't think it'll get any easier to see."

"I'm not sure I want to hear it again, either," Sahron said.

Violet still had Judy's other paw. "We should go for dinner. Before it gets too cold."

\---

The sun had not set so much as it had abandoned them for the night. And now even the nearly-full moon and the countryside's dazzling spread of stars seemed distant and crowded out, thanks to the deep forest on either side of the road.

Nick and Judy led the way, he with his night vision and she with her custom flashlight, turned low so that it wouldn't glare on the road. When they talked at all, it was in hushed tones, while they processed what they had seen and felt.

"There wasn't anything else up there that would ring like that," Sharon said.

"What about the gears?" Grant asked. "The ones that were still there, anyway."

"Maybe it was a warning," Judy wondered aloud.

"A warning from who, Jude?" Violet asked. "And about what? Attributing intelligence and intent where it may or may not exist is a cognitive bias."

Sharon snorted. "You're such a scientist."

"And a buzzkill," Judy added. "You don't think there's anything at all to the story? Mammals drowned because the fire department didn't get there in time. Who's to say-" she paused, while they crunched through the pine needles on the side of the road and back up the ridge, and pulled Nick closer. "Who's to say they're not still there?"

Violet just gave her the patient look of the older sister. "You can test your hypothesis, then, and I'll test mine. I'm sure there's some explanation for it. We just weren't in a position to investigate it."

"Fine."

Nick paused with them by the big rocks they'd passed on the way out, to cast one last look down the gloomy holloway, where the lake was now out of sight again.

"We could always go back," he floated.

"In the daytime, I hope," Sharon murmured.

"Well, sure." If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the lakeshore and its buildings, bleached in the moonlight; and the ragged tower standing its lonely vigil in the wind. He turned to follow the others up the ridge and into camp. "It'll be easier to see what's going on then."


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner was a nice tangible distraction, full of good, hearty, grounding food.

They sat on logs by the tent, close to the warmth of the charcoal brazier, and tucked into steaming bowls of potatoes with corn and carrot stew. Dessert was the puffins they'd so carefully made that afternoon - still warm, thanks to the foil Grant had wrapped them in - and the season's hallmark cider.

Judy sat in the crook of Nick's tail with her knees curled under her chin and blew on the steam from her mug. Violet looked on.

"Careful you don't spill on him."

Nick caught the twinkle in Violet's eye, and took it as permission to wind his fuzzy tail a bit tighter. "It wouldn't be the first time."

Across the glow of the heater, Sharon was continuing his Watcher-spotting lessons. She pointed out into the formless dark of the treeline.

"They stay low, between the trunks. Mostly they just look like fog or mist, but their eyes shine yellow, like fireflies."

Grant, for his part, tried to take it as seriously as she did. "How can you tell they're not actually fireflies?"

"It's too late in the season," Violet said.

Sharon nodded. "Those are usually gone for the year by August or September."

Nick smiled, when Grant pursed his lips and nodded absently. He couldn't blame Grant for frowning at the way the sisters all chimed in, or for looking to him for some sort of confirmation.

"I thought they were just stories, too, until I saw a few myself." He looked down at Judy. "And you'll know it when you see it. It's pretty eerie."

"Fair enough." Grant took another bracing drink. "After tonight, I'm not sure I'd dismiss anything out of paw right away."

"That's the spirit," Sharon said. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her chin on his shoulder so they could watch out into the dark together. "See, Violet? Open mind."

Judy chuckled.

Even with a short rabbit nose, Violet had a way of looking down it when she wanted to. Nick guessed it was the glasses.

"You do remember I saw a Watcher two years before you ever did."

"And none of us are any closer to explaining them now than we were then," Sharon pointed out. "I'm just saying, if that works for watchers, why not ghost bells?"

"The difference is we've had generations of Hoppses coming up blank when they try to figure out how Watchers work." Violet pushed her glasses back up. "Has anyone else ever gone to Silver Lake and experienced what we did tonight?"

"Sounds like we should get Winter involved next year," Judy said.

"Oh, no," Sharon laughed. "We'd never hear the end of it from Mom."

Violet finally gave in to the grin. "At least it would be scientifically rigorous."

They whiled another hour away debating the nature of haunting, and keeping vigil for Watchers from their cozy forest perch. By the time Nick's cider was gone and the coals in the heater had dwindled to embers, Judy was curled up right in his lap, keeping his paws and tail close.

He reached down to brush her cheek with his curled fingers. She cracked one eye.

"I think this bunny is ready for bed."

Grant nodded. Sharon was leaning on his shoulder, too. "Just need to put the fire the rest of the way out."

"I'll get it," Nick said. "I'm going to be closest."

There was a bucket in the truck for just that. Nick filled it halfway with dirt, stirred the coals in and upended a bottle of their water over it for good measure. It would go into the fields when they got back, to help prepare the ground for the next season's planting.

The tent was scaled for rabbits, so like most other sleeping arrangements Nick encountered on the farm, it was a bit cramped. But in this case, cramped also meant cozy. Sharon and Grant had one end, and Violet was in the middle, which left Nick just enough room next to her to squeeze in next to - and around - Judy.

"I'm sorry in advance if I roll over you."

"I'll risk it." Violet paused, and reached up to put her glasses in the safety of the gear sling. "As long as you keep Jude warm tonight."

Nick looked down at Judy's grin in the dark and wondered if he should risk pulling his shirt off, too, so she would get even more uninterrupted fur.

"No problem."

He got the tent zipper and they settled down, whispering goodnights and listening to the wind moaning through the endless branches above them.

\---

Nick's first thought, as something prodded his shoulder again, was that he had squished someone after all.

_"Nick!"_

He raised his head carefully, peering at Violet in the midnight dark. The wind was rattling the tent, making her alert ears twist this way and that over the quiet breathing of the others. The way her nose twitched reminded him so much of Judy, he might have thought she was Judy - had Judy not still been fast asleep against the fur of his chest.

"Vi," he mumbled. "What is it?"

"Nick, _listen-_ "

Nick blinked hard, to clear his head of the cobwebs of sleep. They were camping, he remembered, out in the forest past the edges of the property. A heavy creak, maybe from the truck outside, made him tense. Was someone else in the campsite with them? No, it was just the wind out there. The wind, and-

And something deeper. Something brazen and ringing, an unmistakable tone that echoed and boomed as if from some vast distance...

Judy stiffened and woke next to him, thanks either to his bristling reaction or Violet's groping paw. Her ears brushed his chin as they locked onto the same fading noise, and her eyes widened up at them.

 _"I knew it!"_ she hissed. She wormed her way out of the sleeping bag and grabbed for the zipper.

Violet moaned. "Jude, wait!"

They had to scramble to keep up with her, and try to keep the hiss and shuffle of it quiet at the same time. Violet retrieved her glasses and Nick fumbled his way back into his shirt, and they tumbled out into the restless forest.

The moon was a piercing near-full disk overhead, and it was so cold Nick's breath fogged in front of his muzzle before the wind pulled it away. Fallen leaves skittered over the ground and caught on the truck's wheels.

Judy stood stock still in the middle of it, ears poised in case the noise came again. She had rushed out with nothing more than the clothes she'd been sleeping in.

"Where do you think you're going?" Violet demanded.

"You heard it, too," Judy said. "It sounded like-"

"Ringing." Nick made it over to her and wrapped her up against the cold again. She was already shaking. Violet, at least, had the presence of mind to sleep in a nice thick turtleneck sweater. "Like a bell from a long way off."

Violet shivered anyway. "I know what it sounded like. But I hope you're not suggesting we go looking for it now."

_boom_

Nick bristled.

It came again on the wind from the south. The sound was ponderous and inevitable, like a single peal had been dragged out to last for a minute at a time.

"It's the clocktower," Judy said.

"The one that doesn't have a bell anymore?" Violet shifted from foot to foot, gazing fruitlessly into the dark. "No. This has to be- I don't know. Another one of Joe's tricks."

"Joe didn't know we were coming," Judy said. "No one did, remember?"

And Nick had never seen a speaker system that would be up to this. The fading sound rolled like thunder, like it was moving the very air.

"Jude?" There was another rustle from the tent. Sharon stuck her nose out the door, with Grant beside her. "Vi, what's happening?"

"Did you hear it?" Violet asked.

Grant nodded. "I thought it was a bad dream, until she grabbed me."

"Hey."

_boom_

Judy flinched again in Nick's arms, but not away from the sound. Not for long. Instead he could nearly feel the curiosity dragging at her, the thrill of the unknown and no small measure of fear at what it implied.

He got another flash of the lakeside in his imagination, and its drowned memorials. He felt his neck tense, and it didn't have much to do with the wind this time.

"I don't think we should go looking, Carrots," he murmured. "It's cold, and dark."

"And last time..." Violet trailed off and brushed her ears back, but they sprang right back up again. "If it really is dangerous, if there really is- something down there-" She squeezed Judy's paw.

Judy got a very small smile. "I told you."

Violet huffed something exasperated and nervous. She pressed Judy closer, between her and Nick. "Better safe than sorry."

"I know."

Sharon hissed something from the tent.

"At least come back in here to listen? You've let all the warm out."

They wouldn't be sleeping again, that was for sure. Nick paused on his way back at the truck, to retrieve their last thermos of hot cider so they could share, and then he brought up the rear again and hastily sealed them back in against the gloomy unknown and the wind that whispered around their shelter.

They quickly lost count of how many times the distant ringing sounded while they huddled together in the warmth of the tent. Sharon and Grant were under their blanket. Nick and Judy shared with Violet, on Judy's other side, and they all listened to the strangeness.

It wasn't trains, or farm equipment, they decided. And the rainy season was well behind them now, so it couldn't be thunder - much as parts of it sounded that way. And the more they listened, the more the sisters agreed: not even their brother Joe's technical know-how could replicate the sheer mass of whatever they were hearing.

Each time the otherworldly sound rolled over them, Nick felt the giddy sensation of his fur shifting and trying to stand on end, and each time he watched Judy shiver and master the urge to charge out into the dark.

And every few chimes, Nick smiled when he felt a paw brush his tail - though whether Violet was making sure it was still wrapped firmly around Judy, or just reassuring her own nerves, he wasn't sure.

She was right, though. For all they could tell, it really was just sound. And whether it was natural, or a legendary prank, or some inexplicable echo of the past -

He was happy it was out there, and they were in here.


	4. Chapter 4

And so they were careful to find themselves back amid the warm glow of the farm the next time the sun started to sink. They were no closer to an explanation, but there was something comfortable about being able to leave the eerie unknown out of sight and out of mind. Even Judy was happy to leave it that way, Nick estimated.

Tonight, in contrast, they had staked out a nice spot by the fire, on the chairs and hay bales ranged over the grass in front of the number one barn. Daylight waned and the air took on a crisp chill, but they kept it at bay with the big blankets, big mugs of Harvest stew and paws held out to the warm stones of the crackling hearth.

Sharon was off with Grant on a perch at the edge of the firelight, pointing out where the crops faded into the gloom of twilight. Judy and Violet had their careful eye on a gaggle of nearby kits, who were busy loading up marshmallow skewers for roasting over the coals.

Nick sat with them on the oversized slats of the deck chair and enjoyed the scale of it. Harvest itself was just the one day, if you went by the calendar, but nobody here did that.

Here, the party ran for as long as there was the food and friends to sustain it, and with so many enormous farming families around there was no end in sight. The famous corn maze was as huge a hit as ever with the kits; Joe's tech barn was hosting a tiny expo's worth of tractors and hotly debated farm gadgets; and everywhere Nick looked mammals were clustered together, eating the endless food and laughing in the firelight.

There were even two mammals in uniform on the main path. Nick saw an old wolf and a big highland cow on the drive, wearing wide-brimmed hats and familiar-looking equipment belts.

"Are those cops?" he asked.

"Oh good, they made it." Judy slipped out of their seat to go wave them down. Nick watched her go, and shrugged when Violet caught his eye and frowned.

They were county Sheriff's deputies, Nick could see from the detailing on their badges. But they weren't here for anything too important, if the treats the revelers had pressed on them were any indication. They smiled when Judy got their attention, and came over to say hello.

"You must be Wilde." The wolf had a good firm pawshake. "I'm Kiermyer, and this is Hoyt. Bunnyburrow Sheriff's Office."

Hoyt ducked his solid horns hello.

"Judy here has told us all about you," Kiermyer said. "Good to see you got a chance to come out for the season."

"Any time I can," Nick agreed.

"I see you got some snacks, too," Judy said.

Hoyt chuckled. "We wouldn't miss it, either. And we were coming this way anyway."

"We checked out your call," Kiermyer told her. He popped a candied walnut into his mouth and shook his head. "Looks like it always does down there. It's old and creaky, but we didn't see anyone poking around."

Violet, now standing next to Judy, folded her arms. "I knew you couldn't really leave it alone."

Judy looked embarrassed. "Don't tell me you actually could, after what we heard." She looked up at the Sheriff. "We went for a hike down there last night," she admitted. "It... sure _sounded_ haunted. We could hear something last night from the campsite, too. It sounded like, well-"

"Ringing?"

"Yes," she said. "Like bells."

There was an exited chatter from the kits as one of their marshmallows burst into flame. Violet excused herself and went to make sure nothing got out of control.

Hoyt's eyes twinkled behind his mop of headfur. "You're not even the first one to call in about it this week."

Nick couldn't tell if they were humoring her. "Really."

"Not at all. There's something about that lake." The wolf scratched his graying muzzle. "Specially around Harvest. Hikers say they hear stuff, like the ringing. Boats lose power and we have to tow them out." He shrugged. "Nobody ever comes up with any good explanation for any of it, though."

"Shouldn't you warn mammals off, then?" Judy asked. "Stake it out?"

"We're stretched a bit thin to stay put all night, this time of year." Kiermyer eyed his partner. "That'd be nice, though. That drive is spooky when it gets dark. And if that old tower really does ring, I'd like to hear it for myself."

"Try it tonight, then," Judy urged. She grinned. "You know, just to make sure nothing's amiss."

"Ah, you'll make him talk about it all night," Hoyt grumbled. "Come on, Burnam, we're probably pushing it as it is. Rounds to do."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Thank you for following up," Judy said. "It's good to be sure."

"Any time, Officer Hopps." He nodded his wide hat to Judy and Nick. "Tell your mom and pap hi for us, too. Your folks always have the best Harvest party in town."

Nick watched them turn and amble back into the crowd, waving to other mammals they recognized as they went.

"Small world." He eyed her. "I didn't know you called it in."

"It wouldn't leave me alone," she admitted. "I just kept thinking - If it was a call for help the first time, all those years ago..."

"Good to be sure, right?" Nick reached up to pull her back with him into their chair.

"Right. And I thought it would be better to have the on-duty cops do the official checking. Just in case."

"Less paperwork for us," Nick agreed. "Violet's never going to let you hear the end of it, though."

"See, but she _has_ heard it." Judy shook her head at her sister, as she came back up to them with a smoking bamboo stake in her paw. There was a blackened glob of sugar and char on one end.

"Looks perfect," Nick said.

"Do you want it?" Violet proffered the non-sticky end. "I know Judy likes them, but I can't stand them when they burn like this. Neither can Auburn, apparently."

Nick glanced at his seatmate, who smiled at him.

"You first," she said.

Winter had turned him onto these delicacies. He crunched the marshmallow in his teeth and pulled it off the stick. It was smoky and more bitter than sweet, like overdone caramel or good dark coffee. It filled his head with the scent of a rich campfire while he chewed.

Judy watched him enjoy it, and then pushed up his front so she could kiss him square on the muzzle.

"Mm." He licked her nose, acutely aware of the way Violet was grinning at their antics. "Just wanted a taste, huh?"

"For now. We can make some more later."

"So what did the deputies say?" Violet asked.

Judy caught Nick's eye. "Would you believe they get lots of reports of ringing sounds from the lake?" she asked.

"Especially around Harvest," Nick added. "They said they got calls earlier this week, even."

"And no idea what might be causing it?"

"They haven't found anything yet," Nick said. "Judy told them to go back tonight to listen for themselves."

Violet blinked behind her glasses and sat back against the hay bales. "Then I suppose I have to believe it, now."

Judy twitched her nose. "Just like that?"

"In the continued absence of anything more plausible for the moment, yes. Their arguments support what we experienced, and didn't offer any alternative explanations."

"Now you even sound like Winter."

"Well, where do you think she gets it from?" Violet smiled and counted on her fingers. "Second, our family might nod and wink about things like the Watchers this time of year, but I don't imagine fellow law enforcement would lie to you about that sort of thing."

Nick grinned. It was possible the Sheriffs were just in on the seasonal jokes like the rest of them.

Then again, maybe the joke was simply trusting that there really was something wrong with Silver Lake.

"And, well-" Violet paused to shiver, but now she was smiling, too. "You heard it. How could that be natural?"

Judy winked up at Nick. "Told you."

"Yeah." He hugged her closer. "I like that conclusion, too."

"Did we miss marshmallows?"

Sharon was back, in a little flurry of activity as she pulled her puffy sweater back on over her ears. "Oh, never mind. Guess what we just saw out past the east sprinklers?"

"Wow, already?" Judy sat upright in the chair again.

"I didn't think it was dark enough," Violet said.

"Maybe it's not, but we figured we might as well take a nice walk and go check," Sharon said. "You coming?"

Violet was already getting to her feet, and Judy didn't even have to ask Nick. He balled their blanket up to save their seat for whenever they got back. Maybe this would be a false alarm, but knowing this farm he kind of doubted it.

And another walk out in the quiet was tantalizing just now, even if it meant leaving the warmth of the hearth behind.

Maybe, if they kept an ear out just right, they would hear ringing on the wind.


End file.
